


a feral southern girl

by snowdarkred



Category: Walking Dead (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon, Angst, Animal Abuse, Attempted Rape, Gen, Hurt No Comfort, Pre-Canon, Racism, Rule 63, cisgirl!Daryl
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-12-29
Updated: 2011-12-29
Packaged: 2017-10-28 10:04:01
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,002
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/306719
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/snowdarkred/pseuds/snowdarkred
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Daryl’s never understood her brother’s insistence of acting like a dick to black folks and Mexicans.</p>
            </blockquote>





	a feral southern girl

**Author's Note:**

> WARNING: **heavy racism/racist slurs** , domestic violence, attempted gangrape, animal abuse, sexism, and hate violence

Daryl’s never understood her brother’s insistence of acting like a dick to black folks and Mexicans. Why piss off people who might be of use? But while Merle is out of prison, Daryl keeps her mouth shut, like she's supposed to, because she has a goddamn brain between her ears and she wants it to stay there. She goes to the local high school and endures tired teachers and sneering classmates. They look down on her because of her raggedy clothes and trashy brother. Ha. Fuckers don’t know what it’s like to survive on the edge of starvation. Most of them are government fed, but Merle is too proud and paranoid to ask for help. He hunts for their food, and while he has the firm belief that a woman’s place was in the kitchen, he’s too lazy and criminal to put food on the table himself, most of the time. He trains Daryl to hunt because otherwise she’d starve. Simple as that.

But back to the point: Daryl is a survivor, maybe even more than Merle, because she’s had to be. Growing up how she did, with the guys she did, left her with a vicious streak a mile wide and a manipulative one even wider. And people, when you’re nice to them, even if it’s just every once in a while saving their ass, will be nice to you. It’s a habit, one of those social constructs that the school shrink talks about every time Daryl gets dragged in for fighting or fucking on school property.

So when she sees a gang of her brother’s friends cornering some poor nigger, she distracts them with a sneer and twitch of her bum. The black dude looks at her like he knows what she’s doing, but he doesn’t hesitate to take off running. The rednecks shout in frustration at their loss, but they don’t dare take it out on her, ‘cause they know her brother. Merle may beat her black and blue himself, but he’d kill anyone else who did the same. That’s his job, after all.

But what she’s done doesn’t go unnoticed, and when Merle gets thrown in jail again for cooking meth in the middle of the woods — fucking idiot, she told him that spot wasn’t safe, but did he listen? Nah, told her to go back to the laundry and mind her own damn business — they come for her. They corral her on school property, the whole pack of them. They’re older than her, and bigger, but she’s mean and scrappy and she doesn’t hesitate to bite, scratch, and kick at sensitive parts. When Merle gets out of jail, he’s gonna murder them all.

Daryl spits blood. She can’t wait.

But she’s just one teenage girl against a group of jerky-tough rednecks, and in the end, she loses. They pin her down and reach for their belts, ignoring the way she squirms and hisses like an ally cat. They jeer to each other, taking bets and working out the pecking order.

Then there’s a dull roar, and a thundering sound, and a group of blacks descends on them like the fury of God. The fight tears her attacks away from her, allowing her to scramble free and run like the devil is at her heels. When she reaches the other side of the parking lot, covered in bruises and cuts and scraped knees, she sees that nigger from the other day looking straight at her. He nods in respect and then clubs one of her attackers over the head with his fist.

Merle’s friends don’t leave her alone after that, of course. Now their pride’s wounded. They call her a “nigger-lover” and vandalize her trailer. Daryl goes out and buys the meanest looking mutt she can find at a local junk yard. She ties him to her porch and makes sure he knows she’s in charge. He lets her pet his massive scarred head, like he’s a lapdog instead of a trained killer.

He’s no lapdog though. When the men come around in the middle of the night, banging on the siding and rattling her windows, he rushes into action, snapping at them until they flea into the night like scared little girls. Daryl pats her dog on the head and calls him a good little savage fucker, just what he needs to be. She gives him deer bones to chew on, even though the marrow is one of her favorite parts.

One day a bunch of the assholes pile into one of their trucks and ride past her trailer. They toss a black baby-doll with a noose around its neck in her front lawn, screaming obscenities at her; she picks it right back up and hurls it after them, cracking Bobby’s rear window and scaring them shitless. Her dog howls and fights his chain, trying to get at them.

They mostly leave her alone after that, but there’s a commotion on the other side of town the next night: Four black homes burn to the ground, clearly arson.

When Merle gets out of prison again, one of them rats on her. He comes home, shoots her dog in the head, and then beats her senseless for associating with some jumped up nigger. She crawls to the bathroom after he leaves and looks in the mirror. She can’t tell where the marks he left begin and the ones given to her by his bastard friends end. She spits out her last baby tooth and goes to bury her dog.

Merle takes off and puts four of the guys who attacked her in the hospital. He picks up a puppy for her on the way home, but Daryl doesn’t want it. She takes it over to the black folks’ side of town and gives it to that guy’s family instead. They look at her with pitying eyes, taking in her bloody blouse and swollen face.

They take the dog, and she heads back home to cook dinner for Merle.


End file.
